SEO IS DEAD

SEO “USED” TO BE KING

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a method businesses use to attempt to rise to the top of the results listings in Search Engines (SERPs).

This has been a practice since search engines were invented for the Internet.

Search engines encourage website owners to make their pages easier to understand by their robot spiders.

When Search Engines send out their robot spider across the internet, it tries to “read” the page. Optimized pages are easier to read, and subsequently rank properly in the SERPs.

For almost a Decade SEO was the way sharp business owners dominated their industries and crushed their competition.

During this time up to 85% of websites were found for the first time due to a search in an engine like Google or Yahoo!

Since 2/3rds of all searchers rarely clicked on links beyond the first page, it only made sense to try to get your site ranked within the top 10 search results.

HOW SEO DIED

SEO began to get abused in 1997 when 3rd party software and companies began to spring up with the sole purpose of “gaming” the engines.

One popular way was to “stuff” or repeat the same phrase over and over in the web pages HTML code called Meta Tags.

A famous upgrade to the code in Google was the “Britney Spears” update. Pornographic Websites began stuffing the keyword “Britney Spears”, who was the most searched term at the time, into their Keyword Meta Tags. Even though their site was totally unrelated to the pop singer, their sites showed up first in SERPs.

This is why by 1999 Search engines had stopped factoring the meta tag “description” and “keywords” in their ranking algorithms.

Such abuses caused the engines to get smarter faster and start to penalize and even ban websites that used unapproved methods to
“optimize” their sites.

These methods are called “black hat” because they were condemned by the engines themselves. Approved methods were called “white hat” and are encouraged by search engines.

Black hat methods are notorious for taking advantage of loopholes, bugs, holes and weaknesses in the search engines.

Black hat methods actually work really fast and really well. However, as soon as an engine discovers a site using black hat methods (or even associating with a site or company that does,) they penalize or permanently ban that website.

Currently only spammers (who do not care about long term results) use black hat methods. Legitimate businesses realize there is no point being number 1, only to later never ever show up anywhere at all in that same engine again after getting caught for cheating.

SEO IS DEAD Part2

WHATS THE POINT OF SEO ANYWAY

Somehow, the people who (still) sell traditional SEO manage to convince people the purpose of SEO is to get your site ranked higher for specific search terms (keywords.)

Many of today’s contemporary agencies used to sell it too. The better ones have realized they would rather produce long term results for their customers than short term bragging rights.

If you SELL SEO, gloating about being in the top 10 of Google may be the point of YOUR business, but ONLY if SEO is your only service line!

Often such top 10 rankings by outdated SEO firms are for search terms no “customer” actually types into the search engines anyway.

Such companies do not realize business owners are not in it for bragging rights.

As if you as an owner would be proud to say “HA! I am in first position for ‘Cantonese basket weaving jokes!’”

Yes, they guarantee you will be in the “top positions”, but not necessarily for a good search term.

They also rarely mention how much traffic you will (or will not) get.

Is your goal simply to be above your competition in the engines for some obscure word? OR is it to get more visitors to your website?

Most old-method SEO companies do not understand this end goal, but are happy to take your money anyway. Later they tell you “congratulations, you are now number 4 in the engines for (useless rarely-searched phrase.)”

Search Engine Ranking is not an award certificate. It is designed to drive traffic naturally, without you having to pay for it.

THE STUPID CYCLE OF SEO

SEO uses a lot of fancy programming and techniques to “optimize” a web page and promote it on the web to try to get it to climb the ranks in the search engines.

No matter your product or service, if you SEO your site, you want your page to be higher on the list than your competition.

Web surfers usually start with the first link and work their way down. The sooner they click you, the better your chances of getting a sale.

But just as you are willing to pay money to get your page optimized, and have someone perform all the SEO tricks to get your page higher — so will your competition.

Your competition wants to beat you just as much, if not more, than you want to beat them.

So EVEN IF you do get to the top, it will just make your competition try that much harder to knock you back down a peg or two.

So you end up in a vicious cycle where you and your direct (and indirect) competitors are jockeying back and forth for first position.

SEO IS DEAD Part 3

Whoever spends the most time (spelled M-O-N-E-Y) on SEO wins. At least for a time, just so long as no one else spends a little more than they do.

So even if you get to the top, you can bet, you won’t stay there for long.

ENTER THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

In the year 2009, less than 47% of web surfers found websites through a search engine. And that number is shrinking daily.

Social Referral Sites like Digg and Del.ico.us allow site members to post the link of their favorite web address for other members to visit. Other visitors get to vote on whether or not they like it.

Social News Sites like Redit, Slashdot and Fark aggregate news articles recommended by its site visitors.

Social Networking Sites like Twitter and Facebook allow people to share reviews and links of favorite sites.

Social Bookmarking Sites like Stumble, actually act as a publicly accessible ”favorites” or “bookmark” for web pages.

Now, combine all the social media with News aggregators like Google News and Yahoo News plus corporate and industry web presence pages like CNN, CNBC, Entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal, Christianity Today, Family Circle, FORBES etc. and you have a ton of press, publicity, bookmarking, networking and overall word of mouth happening on the internet.

THE SECRET KEY

In addition to the Millions of Social Media Sites out there, there are BLOGS and FORUM sites aggregating social media into blog networks like TweetMeme.

Oh yes, Blogs. There are Millions upon Millions of Blogs on the internet. Today, Blogs look at search engines and laugh at their inaccuracy and failure to stay up-to-the-second with information.

Old School Search Engine Optimization has had its time at the top. As many pioneers of the internet, their day is over. Add Search engines to the list with Compuserve, AOL, and Myspace.

Yes, we know sadly, that eventually even the currently popular phenoms like Twitter and Facebook will be replaced by what will be a newer, slicker, faster and just plain old better application.

Search Engines like Google became so huge and popular, because that was how people generally figured out how to find information on the internet.

SEO IS DEAD Part 4

Those days are long over. People find sites every which way these days. Every way it seems, except through search engines the majority of the time.

The search engines feel social media’s information is much more current and relevant than their own. Which is why they all have added social elements.

Google, (Who owns Youtube,) will often put News, Twitter, Youtube and other site results in the middle of what they would normally post as results to a search.

This just proves the relevance of social media and the search engines inability to keep up. The best they can do is repost and quote after the fact whatever social media already has moved past.

Sharp business owners have discovered that each of the social media sites results are often what the search engines use to list as results.

OPTIMIZATION VS SATURATION

Think about this. Imagine if you were the owner of a business that put on real estate seminars.

Your direct (and indirect) competition in the search engines for real estate would come from: any individual who has a house for sale; people looking for houses on craigslists; the guy selling books on real estate on ebay; the Wall Street Journal’s latest article about real estate; RE agents; the Realtor organization; and even the latest twitter results containing the “word” Real Estate.

That’s not to mention all the mortgage brokers, appraisers, contractors, investors, title companies, tax sale auctions and even developers that would all also want their website at the top of those same results.

When you search Google you will often see it say something like “Results 1-10 of 2,232,280 results”!

Hundreds of thousands to millions of possible results, and you want to spend your money to try to be number 1-10?

Well, I am sorry to report, the odds are against you.

However, there is good news.

NEW FOCUS, BETTER RESULTS

What if instead of focusing on traditional SEO, you focused on Saturation?

In other words, what if instead of “optimizing” your site/page for one search engine, you took a different approach and decided to saturate the ENTIRE INTERNET itself with your web page?

Think about it. If people are book marking, tweeting and sharing your site all over the internet. Plus all the news sites are running articles on you, and your site is all over the net. Then wouldn’t your TRUE GOAL, of getting website visitors (to turn into customers), be getting accomplished?

People who read about you on CNBC’s website will come visit your page.

People who see their friends tweet about you will come visit your page.

People who read a blog article about you will also come visit your page.

SEO IS DEAD Part 5

The additional benefit is: now instead of simply having one (optimized) listing in the search engine, you end up with SEVERAL, many of them on the first page! None of them is even your site, but all of them are pages that lead people TO your website!

End Goal accomplished!

SATURATION IS BETTER THAN OPTIMIZATION

That is Search Engine Saturation.

Here is another way to look at it. You can pay BIG money, and have the BIGGEST and FIRST Ad in the Yellow Pages Directory. (Optimization)

…OR

You can have every radio station, News broadcast, and magazine talking about your business, in addition to people buzzing about you in every barber shop, sports event, hair salon, and restaurant. (Saturation)

Which would you rather have?

Which will bring you more business?

Which will have a longer lasting effect?

This, my friend, is the power of saturation over optimization.

VIRAL IS THE NEW BLACK

The reason so many businesses and companies go for “black hat SEO” is because it happens so quick and frankly, just works so darn well.

This temptation is too great for many. They feel they will get away with it. They don’t think they will get caught.

But they ALWAYS do.

Either the search engine’s anti-cheat technology catches them or an angry competitor reports them.

Either way, the short term gain is never worth the long term punishment of being “banished” from the Major Search Engines.

If it is beyond the year 2009 and you are reading this, forget traditional SEO.

Viral marketing is the Internet’s version of Word Of Mouth referring through Internet Saturation.

Viral Marketing is just as fast, just as powerful and more importantly, a perfectly legitimate way to dominate the search engines and the internet as a whole.

Search Engines will always be a source of traffic, SEO is simply no longer the way to “optimize” your listings in them. Viral marketing automatically saturates the internet, leaving SEO as a naturally occurring byproduct.

Viral marketing also cannot be defeated by SEO no matter the budget. The businesses that use Viral Marketing techniques to saturate the internet are light years beyond the businesses still attempting to use old school SEO techniques.

19 Comments to “SEO IS DEAD”

Hi Pastor Moe!
Got your Viral Marketing facebook invite and would like to inquire as to what you charge for a viral marketing campaign. We are a very small business with a very small budget (probably like everyone else!) and have grown our business since 2007 just by using some local advertising. Can you give us a rough idea of your pricing?
Thank you!
Craig Reynolds

Yes, in the end people DO talk about these things. But you have to find creative ways.

For instance there is a problem that many people have with toilet tissue “sticking” and leaving pieces behind (no pun intended). How do you talk about that? How do you present your company that has a solution. Check out the bears for charmin

This is a creative way to bring up a difficult discussion. Now the bears in and of themselves do not create viral activity, but they are an example of a way to present such an issue. Once you determine a strategy to reach your target audience in a non-embarrising or intrusive way, then you can create a viral strategy for it.

we talk about blackhat and the problems with TRICKING the engines or doing what is considered SPAM, VIOLATION, ILLEGAL and UNETHICAL practices. It always comes back on the site owner and is never worth it.

Finally! I’ve been preaching this for the past 3 years! I run over 100 websites and have invested huge efforts into SEO in the past, but on average, only 10-20 percent of traffic ends up coming from search engines. Even large sites like IBM bear this out. Why spend effort on old out-dated strategies? Newer methods like social networking, videos, inbound links through blogs, coupon sites, etc. and joint venture campaigns are what make your site popular. And only after you are already popular, do the search engines care about you. It all comes back to word-of-mouth. More info is available at facebook.com/webstoresltd and theecommerceentrepreneur.com. Thanks for a great post!

…and here I just spent $30 on an SEO book for DUMMIES – which your article makes me one?
What you say makes sense, as even in my very limited WEB knowledge – I have noticed how fast
the WEB is out running its self and everything about it constantly changing, I presume for the better? Here I am an 85 year old dummy trying to learn and before I can even read a NEW book,
it is dated? Am I correct? Even though us Okies have always been considered by others to be ?
PS: I have been noticing VIRAL marketing but in my novice position I just thought it was for the
future, but you say it is many months past new, so before I can learn it will a new, more vigorous ‘virus’ be the thing? Thank you for a good, to me timely, article. Bernard

Your instincts were right, things are changing quickly, but Search is a Dinosaur that was the foundation of the internet in regards to commerce. Viral may one day be replaced but it won’t be anytime soon. Prior to search engines, for the first 4 or 5 years of the internet, “Directories” were king. Then for around 10 years Search Engines were. The reason SEO is dead, is because search engines no longer run the internet.

Viral will be around for quite some time. What you will find in the future is as Television, Mobile/Wireless and Internet Merge, Video and things related to this mix will begin to dominate.